American heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, a designer and artist who became one of the most chronicled socialites of her era, died Monday after a battle with stomach cancer, her son announced. She was 95 years old. The great-great granddaughter of railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, she was thrust into the spotlight as the "poor little rich girl" at the center of a sensational custody battle in the 1930s, before finding fame in her own right for her line of designer blue jeans and it-girl fashion. "Gloria Vanderbilt was an extraordinary woman, who loved life, and lived it on her own terms," her son, the CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, said in a tribute read on air.
"She was a painter, a writer, and designer but also a remarkable mother, wife, and friend. She was 95 years old, but ask anyone close to her, and they'd tell you, she was the youngest person they knew, the coolest, and most modern." Artistic and glam, Vanderbilt was well-known for her tumultuous love life that included four marriages and racy escapades with a slew of suitors including Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and Marlon Brando. "It is fantastic how Vanderbilt she looks! See the corners of her eyes, how they turn up?" her father, aristocrat Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt, is said to have exclaimed after her birth in Manhattan on February 20, 1924.
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